Friday, January 3, 2014

Countdown to Release Day, Part 2 : Just a Tease

Now that I've gotten my blog back from a certain wayward character (ahem), how about a little tease? Here's a short excerpt from the opening chapter of LIVING DEAD GIRL:

Providence, Rhode Island

Was
it a full moon? Because it seemed like crazy hit town and we got flooded. The
funeral home was packed with more bodies than usual. I’d spent the past half
hour explaining to a grieving family why an open casket really wasn’t the best
option for their grandmother who’d been dead for over two weeks. Believe me, it
wasn’t. I’d never been so happy to lock the front door.

Dad
and I were cleaning up the prep room when my nineteen-year-old cousin Ethan
appeared in the doorway with his hand shoved in a bag of chips. Like all the
men in the family he towered over me, a height that was punctuated by another
three or so inches of reddish-brown white boy ’fro. “You guys want the bad news
or the really bad news first?”

The
beginnings of a migraine pulsated in my right temple, growing more insistent by
the second. It was now after ten o’clock at night. The only thing I wanted was
to shower and get ready for bed.

Dad
closed the stainless steel cabinet where we kept all the bottles of embalming
chemicals. “Just lay it all out there.”

“Man,
you guys are no fun.” He stuffed another chip in his mouth, then wiped his hand
on the front of his Naruto T-shirt.
“All right. We got another stiff, and Drew’s at some shady party getting
hammered.” Ethan grinned.

“What?”
I said. “Drew is…what?”

“You
know, getting sloshed, shitfaced, cocked, drunk—”

“I
know what it means, you ass.”

Dad
looked at me, frowning. “Isn’t he supposed to be working on a science project?”

“What,
like how many beers does it take to get to the center of a—?”

“Ethan,
knock it off,” I snapped. “Yes, he was supposed to be working on a science
project. I should’ve known.”

“Right?
Nobody does homework on Friday nights.”

“You’re
really not helping.”

Dad
sighed and slumped his shoulders. “Well, one of us will have to go get him.”

“Why
don’t you guys flip for it?” Ethan held a quarter between his thumb and
forefinger and waved it in front of my face. “C’mon. Heads, Jen gets him; tails
and Uncle Andrew does it. It’s foolproof.”

Foolproof?
Ha. Right. Try suckered. Dad and I
looked at each other and shrugged. My sixteen-year-old brother deserved the
mother of all ass-kickings. Was it wrong that I was hoping for tails? Tails
meant filling out some paperwork and escorting a body from the hospital morgue.
It meant no aggravation. That body wasn’t going to argue or give me an
attitude. My brother?